


Real

by stilinskiloveslydia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Stydia, i wrote this before we got the rescue episode, so its way off, stydia angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 10:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6075495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilinskiloveslydia/pseuds/stilinskiloveslydia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wrote this like months before the Eichen Rescue, even before we really knew what was happening. I think I wrote this after we got the sneak peak of the scene to open 5a.<br/>Lydia hallucinates some things, has trouble figuring out whats real when the pack shows up to rescue her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real

Lydia was in a haze. Everything was blurry, sounds were muffled, her brain was foggy.

She could tell that her hair was wet; she felt the strange clamminess that came with being fresh out of the shower with no time to dry off. Pieces of her long red hair stuck to her forehead, she tried to push it off of her sweaty skin, but found that her hand wouldn’t move. She tilted her head and discovered that there were hand cuffs clasped to her wrists and ankles.

A shadow moved in the hallway outside the glass door, she didn’t know exactly what was going on, where she was, but she felt a strange sense of foreboding.

A young man, he looked familiar, came into the room with…Valack? Lydia could feel a panic building in her; she was coming out of the haze. And she remembered.

Seeing Valack meant pain, that’s why she was afraid.

“Good evening Lydia” he drawled, a sinister smirk on his face. She winced and glanced at the young man beside the doctor. He was holding something…a bottle and a syringe.

“From now on, we will be trying a different method of stimuli, we are more interested in how your brain reacts to…emotions rather than physical pain” he said, tracing a finger down Lydia’s face. Her eyes closed and she pressed her lips together. The assistant brought the supplies forward, placing them on the small table next to Valack. He picked up the needled syringe and pierced the aluminum top of the small bottle. His index finger pulled back on the trigger, sucking the clear liquid up into the tube. Lydia didn’t know much about whatever this was, but she knew she didn’t want it anywhere near her. It was clearly meant for her and she was starting to really panic. Her breaths were coming in short bursts and she couldn’t stop clenching and unclenching her fists.

The two men quickly pulled another syringe out, one she was familiar with. She didn’t know what was in it, but she did know that it left her unable to fight back, unable to move.

The needle went into her arm and she stilled, mind still racing.

A heart monitor was set up and attached to her, along with small electrodes stuck to her temples.

At this point she knew it was to her advantage to try to calm down, they said they wanted to see her reaction to emotional pain, so she needed to calm down.

Valack grinned ominously and picked up the new medication filled tube, positioning the needle above the large vein in her neck.

She felt the needle go in and closed her eyes, and suddenly they were gone. How had they left so quickly? She looked around the room, and like before saw something moving out in the hallway. She closed her eyes, willing herself to drift into unconsciousness before they could do anything.

She heard the door open, heard footsteps approaching her bed.

Soon, soft fingers were on her skin, tracing her jaw, caressing her cheek. She knew who it was, but there was no way it was actually him.

But when she opened her eyes she saw him, she saw him kneeling beside her, brown eyes wild.

“Stiles?” she choked out, reaching out for him. His hands slithered up her arms, pulling her into a warm embrace. She cried into his chest, tears wetting his t-shirt. Her hands bunched in his shirt, she clung to him for dear life.

“Lydia” he whispered, relief coloring his voice as he held her more tightly.

“Stiles…what are you doing here?” she asked carefully. He was wearing the uniform gray t-shirt and sweatpants of a patient here, which essentially answered her question for her.

“I posed as a patient to find you, god Lydia, I’m so glad I found you” he said, hands still rubbing up and down her arms, trying to soothe her. Lydia was caught up in him, his eyes, his face; her gaze lingered on his lips…

“Stiles we need to get out of here. Right now” she said, green eyes boring into the whiskey ones in front of her. They could have their real reunion once they were safe. They were not safe right now.

Stiles nodded at her and pulled one of her arms around his shoulders, pulling her so that she was standing. One of his hands held her arm in place around his neck, the other slid down to her waist, pulling her tightly against his side.

They made their way down the seemingly deserted hallway and made it as far as the gate into the Supernatural Ward when orderlies swarmed them.

Lydia screamed as she was ripped away from him. He was screaming her name, he was fighting, his effort earning him several punches and whacks. She felt the tears streaming down her face and she fell to her knees…

She gasped as her eyes opened, she jerked on the bed, fighting against her restraints. Valack sat on the stool by the bed furiously scribbling notes. Her heart was pounding and she was doused in sweat.

Where was he? Where did he go? Where was Stiles?

They left her alone for most of the next day, for which she was extremely grateful. She used the time to try to figure out if what she had seen was real.

She still hadn’t figured it out by the time they returned, once again hooking her up to a heart monitor and electrodes.

She felt the needle enter her neck once more…

She was still in her room, but she was strapped into a chair rather than to her bed. How strange. She took in her surroundings, a faceless orderly melted out of the darkness in the corner, dragging something heavy behind him. He pulled it forward with an unpleasant scraping sound and Lydia’s breath caught in her throat.

It was Stiles. He was strapped to a chair identical to the one she was in. His eyes flicked from side to side, scanning for a way out.

“Are you ready for your punishment for your little…escape attempt yesterday?” the orderly hissed.

He moved her chair slightly, and moved to stand in front of Stiles. She saw him clench a fist and raise it.

“NO” she screamed as the fist plummeted toward Stiles’s face. It collided with a dull thud, a gruff groan escaping from Stiles.

This continued for an hour. By the end of it, Stiles was a bloodied mess. His lip was split open, his left eye swollen completely shut, his nose broken. Lydia’s throat was raw from her unyielding torrent of pleas for the beating to stop.

The orderly had finally obliged, leaving the room.

Stiles sat in the chair, head hanging limply onto a shoulder, both eyes closed.

“Stiles?” Lydia sobbed, lurching forward in her chair. It scraped forward a few inches. The sound roused Stiles, who coughed and spit blood onto the floor. Lydia let out a strangled cry in relief. She sobbed freely, tears spilling onto the blood soaked floor.

“Lydia…whateber…happens…” he tried, speaking thickly due to the swollen lips and blood dripping into his mouth from his broken nose.

“Stiles-“

“Don’t gib theb anything” he managed, letting his head fall back onto his shoulder. He was exhausted; she knew he needed time to rest, to recover. So she kept her eyes on his chest, checking for the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

They were left alone for a while…but the orderly came back. As he entered the room Lydia felt something…something awful. She looked down at what he was carrying and felt as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped on her.

What he had…was everything one needed to conduct electro shock therapy. She ground her teeth together, eyes wide. The orderly stopped in front of Stiles and slapped him hard across the face.

Stiles woke with a shout, toppling over in the chair. He landed with a grunt, his face pressed against the concrete. The orderly smirked and roughly pulled the chair back up, Stiles flailing along with it. The orderly knelt down by the kit, and began pulling things out.

Stiles finally noticed what it was, and his eyes went wide. He made eye contact with Lydia; she let out a whimper and pressed her lips together.

“Lydia…like I said…whateber happens…” he started, still talking thickly because of his lip.

“Stiles you’re going to be fine okay? Scott will get here…someone will-“

“Lydia this entire ward is made out of mountain ash…no one is going to get here,” he said solemnly.

“No! You can’t give up Stiles, you’re going to be fine,” she breathed, trying to keep her voice even.

“I love you Lydia,” he said sadly as the orderly placed the metal band around his head.

“I…Stiles I love you too” she cried, continuing with her desperate effort to reach him, scooting inch by inch.

The wires were hooked up to the headband and the orderly turned his attention to Lydia.

“I just want you to know that this is all your fault. He came down here to get you, now he’s going to die” he whispered, pulling her chair so that she was sitting directly in front of Stiles.

She felt as though she hadn’t stopped crying in hours, tears slid slowly down her cheeks.

“Please just…take me instead. You don’t want him! He’s a human please, take me,” she begged. Stiles attempted to shush her.

“Lydia its okay, I’d rather it be me” he whispered. The orderly cackled, sliding the rubber piece into Stiles’s mouth, his hand moved toward the dial…

“No, nO PLEASE PLEASE! I’LL DO ANYTHING PLEASE DON’T-“

And electricity was coursing through Stiles’s body, he spasmed, his eyes rolling back into his head. Lydia shrieked, her voice ringing through the ward.

He stopped spasming, his breathing was ragged, eyes closed in pain. Lydia fought against the cuffs, grinding her teeth together. She cursed and threw profanities at the orderly. He just laughed and reached for the dial again. He cranked it higher. Stiles screamed.

“PLEASE STOP IT! PLEASE I’LL DO ANYTHING PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! JUST KILL ME! I DON’T CARE ANYMORE JUST DON’T HURT HIM” she screeched. Deep down she knew it was no use, she was losing him. She could feel the scream building in her chest, a scream for Stiles…for Stiles’s death…

Her head fell against her chest as she wept. The next one…the next increase on the dial would kill him…she knew it. He was already close to losing consciousness.

“Stiles…I love you so much…I’m sorry” she breathed. He attempted to look up at her, and he gave her a pained smile. He couldn’t speak, but she knew what he would have said. He loved her too…

The dial was cranked up and his body flailed once more. He screamed for several minutes then…went silent. His body still jerked around from the electricity but Lydia knew…and she screamed…

She bolted upright in her bed, breaking the cuffs. Rough hands were pinning her down as she screamed. The sound was like nothing she had ever heard before. A banshee’s scream mixed with unbearable grief. It rivaled the scream she let loose when Allison was killed…

The screaming didn’t stop. She couldn’t make it end. She could barely stop to suck in enough breath to keep it going. She just kept screaming.

After hours of the unholy sound, her body gave out on her, she lost consciousness. While this was normally a release, all she could see behind her eyelids was Stiles’s dead body, all she could hear were his last breaths, she woke up screaming again.

Finally Valack took pity on her and injected her with more medicine, this medicine brought her into semi reality.

Based upon the stiffness in her limbs…she figured that she hadn’t moved from the bed in…days…

So that meant that…it wasn’t real. Stiles wasn’t…

She endured the same torture nonstop for weeks. She was continually injected with the awful clear liquid, shown visions of all her friends dying. Each time she screamed…but nothing was like when they showed her Stiles dying. Every time that happened she was inconsolable. She would scream for hours. She wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t dead, she had screamed for him. A banshee scream predicted death. The logical explanation was that… if Stiles wasn’t dead already…he was going to be.

Even if she wasn’t under the influence of the medication, she was having nightmares about him dying.

She had seen him die a million times in a million different ways. A brutal beating, gunshot to the head, stabbed, infected with a weaponized virus, more electrocution, at the hands of the supernatural, lobotomized. Anything that was awful…she had seen…and she had seen it happen to him. So when she woke up to find him hovering above her, she closed her eyes and waited for the pain to start.

“Lydia? Are you okay?” his voice asked her. She just kept her eyes closed tight.

“Lydia it’s me… Stiles. Come on we need to get out of here. Can you stand?” he whispered.

“This isn’t real,” she said to herself.

“Lydia I promise this is real,” he told her, the concern in his voice was palpable.

“Please Lydia we need to get out of here, they’ll be back soon. Scott, Kira, and Malia are waiting outside the ward,” he said, bringing his hand to her cheek, rubbing his thumb against the prominent cheekbone. She reluctantly opened her eyes, and she saw him. He was wearing the gray clothes he always wore in her hallucinations, but something seemed more…solid.

“You’re real?” she whispered. His warm brown eyes met her green ones and he nodded, suddenly moving his hands to the cuffs on her wrists, coaxing them off. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up, she was incredibly unsteady. He pulled her arm over his shoulder and wrapped his arm around her waist, supporting her as they exited the room.

There was a scuffling sound and suddenly Scott’s voice rang down the hallway.

“GUYS WE GOT COMPANY” he shouted. Lydia knew it was too good to be true. She stopped, refused to move.

“Lydia what are you doing?”

“This isn’t real. This happens every time…we try to get out and they hurt you and you…you die…you’re dead,” she whispered, eyes going fuzzy.

“Lydia I swear to god this is real okay? We’re going to get out but I need you to move. Please Lydia”

She just shook her head, unwilling to go through another situation of Stiles dying. She couldn’t handle it. She could hear the voices of her friends screaming for them to run, but she knew it wasn’t real.

“Lydia, I need you to trust me okay? Just trust me,” Stiles demanded as he stepped closer to her, cupping her jaw, forcing her to look into his eyes. She trusted him…she trusted him completely…but how could she know this wasn’t just another cruel trick?

“Alright Lydia, when you’re hallucinating or dreaming you have extra fingers okay? Count my fingers with me” he instructed, holding up his hands in front of her. She remembered reading about this once, and she knew that was how Stiles kept himself grounded after the Nogitsune.

“STILES WE NEED TO GO” Scott bellowed.

“I’m trying!” Stiles called back, looking back to Lydia expectantly. She focused her vision on his hands, his long thin fingers rolled into a fist. His carefully held one up.

“One…” they counted together, he continued to hold up fingers, “two…three…four” she sucked in a shuddering breath, “five…six…seven…eight…nine…ten” they finished. This was real. He had ten fingers. They were escaping. She looked up at him, now coming out of her haze.

“Stiles?” she asked again.

“Yes! Okay Lyds, come on we have to go NOW,” he said, throwing caution to the wind and picking her up bridal style.

He ran to the door where Scott was waiting with Kira and Malia. Malia was distracting some orderlies and Scott gave a low growl, signaling that it was time to go.

The exit entailed a few knocked out orderlies and doctors, but they made it out mostly without issue.

They ran into the parking lot, toward a very familiar blue jeep. To Lydia’s surprise it was Scott who threw open the driver’s side door and got in, sliding the key into place, starting the car, hands clutching the steering wheel. He tossed Malia the keys to his bike and she mounted it, driving ahead to let Deaton know they were on their way. Kira held the seat forward as Stiles climbed in the back with Lydia, holding her against his chest. Suddenly alarms went off in the building in front of them. Stiles cursed and Kira wrenched the door shut, Scott pressing hard on the gas.

They were gone before anyone had noticed the car.

They drove away, taking turns way too fast, teetering dangerously if they took a sharp one. They got to animal clinic and quickly made their way inside.

Lydia’s mind was slightly clearer than it had been in the asylum, but she was still confused.

She was being set on a cold metal table. Another needle was being inserted into her arm. She whimpered and Stiles grabbed her hand, rubbing circles.

The next few hours went by in blur. Medicine, dreamless sleep, IV fluids, more sleep, countless voices around her. The only constant was Stiles, who never let go of her hand.

When she finally came to completely, it was just her and Stiles in the room. They had put a pillow under her head and she shifted on it, blinking rapidly as she saw the fluorescent lights. Her throat was sore, raw. She saw Stiles next to her in a chair, one hand clasped to hers, his head bent down staring at his phone.

“Stiles?” she croaked out. He dropped his phone in surprise and looked over at her. A gentle smile spread across his face.

“Hey Lyds” he said, squeezing her hand.

“I got out,” she said.

“You did”

“How long have I been here?”

“About two days”

“And you’ve been here the whole time?”

“Yeah..”

She couldn’t believe he had stayed with her that entire time. What she really couldn’t believe was that he was completely fine. He wasn’t dead. She had screamed for him but he wasn’t dead.

“You’re alive,” she stated, eyes roaming over his body.

“Yes…why wouldn’t I be?” he asked quietly. His eyebrows slanted up, brown eyes full of worry.

“Well…I sort of…I saw you die…a lot” she said. His lips parted, a small gasp slipping out.

“I screamed for you,” she whispered, squeezing his hand.

“Oh my god…Lydia. I’m so sorry” he murmured, leaning forward and pressing his lips to her hair.

“But you’re okay…” she breathed. She remembered what happened in her first hallucination…how she said she…loved him. She had known since that moment that it was true.

“Stiles I need to tell you something” she said seriously, sitting up on the table. He stood up, moving closer to her. He was so close that his knees were bumping hers.

“What do you need to tell me?” he asked.

“When I saw you die…all of those times…I realized something”

“What?”

“I can’t be without you…I saw you die, and Stiles I was about to go out of my mind. I can’t be in a world without you,” she stated, eyes flitting to the ground.

“I feel the same way Lydia,” he said, smiling in agreement.

“No Stiles its more than that…I…I love you” she whispered, looking down, refusing to meet his eye.

“You love me?” he asked, putting a finger under her chin, tilting her head up to look at him.

“I do,” she said. What she saw next was a smile that could light up an entire city.

“Well thank god, because I’ve loved you since the third grade” he said, pulling her into a hug.

“You really love me? Still? After all this time?” she asked uncertainly.

“Of course I do,” he said as he pulled away, resting a hand on the table and the other cupped the right side of her face. She smiled and surprised herself with what she did next. She lunged forward; bring her hands to his jaw and pulling him toward her. Their lips met in a rough kiss. She threaded her fingers into his hair; he gently nudged her legs apart so that he could move closer to her, standing in between them.

His hands trailed down to her waist, wrapping around her, pulling her against him.

Eventually the two broke apart to breathe, leaning their foreheads together.

Lydia let out a breathy giggle. And suddenly they heard whoops and cheers around them.

“Well FINALLY” Scott laughed as he entered the room. Stiles blushed and moved aside. Scott gave Lydia a hug and rubbed her shoulder. Kira was laughing too, rushing forward to pull Lydia into a tight hug, she had been so worried about her best friend.

Even Malia was grinning, and stepped forward, grabbing Lydia’s hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.

Their problems were far from over, but they had won this one. They had found Lydia; they had found their banshee. They could all rest easy that night, knowing that everything was going to be, at least for that time, okay.

Stiles and Lydia were never apart for more than an hour until their conflict with the Dread Doctors ended, Lydia being terrified of actually letting loose a scream that would mean the end of Stiles’s life, and Stiles too afraid of losing her again.

They helped each other through it, falling back into their place as the infallible detective team. The duo was closer than ever, falling into new patterns and getting used to their new relationship, which really was their old one but with more kissing. They were both extremely happy, probably the happiest they had ever been in their lives. All because they had one another.


End file.
